SERMON

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 2002

CHURCH OF THE REDEEMER

People like you and me who spend time at church get to celebrate the new year three times: first, the usual calendar New Year on January 1; then the new Church year on the First Sunday of Advent; and finally today when we begin our new program year at the Church of the Redeemer.  Call it the first Sunday back after summer vacation, or the beginning of Church School, or the return to two services – it is a special day, and I am delighted to be back to our normal routine with kids and choir and all the elements of our parish community celebrating the liturgy.  It seems a long time since we had our last two-service Sunday.  Truly, it’s exhilarating to see you all again!

In our American civil religion we typically mark the turn of the calendar year with First Night celebrations, speech-making, and well-intentioned resolutions.  The new year will, we assure ourselves,  mean greater discipline, less food, more attention to our families, a dedication to all the principles that we love, and general peace among persons of good will like ourselves.  Anticipating today I began to write a speech and put down some resolutions on behalf of this parish when suddenly I was confronted with St. Paul’s words to the new Church community in Rome, words written sometime around 57 A. D. from Corinth.  The Letter to the Romans represents some of Paul’s most salient teaching, much of it still relevant to churches like ours, doing our best to survive the secular pressures ands diversity issues of the world in which we find ourselves 1945 years after Paul wrote the letter in question.

You have the text in your inserts, but I want to walk through it as a set of New Year’s resolutions for our life as a parish this year.  Particularly as we regroup as a community on the eve of one of the terrible anniversaries our nation will ever know, September 11^th.  Personal, moral, and faith-centered, these propositions from the Apostle ring as true today as they did centuries ago.

Let love be genuine.  Cling to good beliefs and deeds.  Love one another, honor and respect each other.  Be enthusiastic, and partisans one of another. Hope and patience in all things will lead us into prayerful lives.  Take your share in the financial support of the church, and extend hospitality to strangers.  Do not seek revenge, but seek to understand those who are threatening or unkind to you.  Live harmoniously, peacefully with one another.  Be aware of the feelings of others and be close to them in their joy and pain.  Be real, not pretending to be wiser than you are.  And again Paul urges us – avoid the tendency to even scores, eye for eye thinking.  Live peaceably with all, and never avenge yourselves.  Have regard for the needs of others, startle people with forgiveness and kindness, even those whom we consider enemies. In sum, overcome evil with good and don’t let evil and negativity direct your lives.

Please note that neither Paul nor I offers any predictions for the months ahead.  Just as at any celebration of the new year, we can not know precisely what the year will bring to us.  But we can be sure that we are not living the year alone, rather in the company of the one God who loves us more than we can ever imagine.  Jesus assures us in the Gospel that when two or three people are gathered in his name, he is there among them.  Jesus is in this place and in all places where life is.  This parish is but one focus of Christian life.  

But today we focus on the life of the community of the Church of the Redeemer.  We begin something new together.  Why are we here today?  Are we seeking truth, fellowship, signs of the reality of God’s love, a reunion with the familiar rites and words that we have not heard for the last few months?  Or are you giving church a try again after a time of doubt, questioning, or boredom?  Only you can respond to such questions.  I know that I rejoice in seeing you today, in singing the hymns and hearing the beauty of the organ and choir.  I know in my heart that I need the mystery of the sacrament of Christ’s Body and Blood and the cherished opportunity to offer each of you a share in the bread and wine.  After church we shall gather as a family at the picnic out back, and there we will share our stories of summer and our dreams for the future.  In the days and months ahead we will be called to minister to one another as agents of solace, support, or advice.  Along with our nation and all nations we will be called in the week ahead to ponder the political, moral, and human realities of last September 11^th.  And we must daily contemplate and pray earnestly about the horrible possibilities of a world destroyed by war, our national policies fanned by the bellicose rhetoric of those who mistake weapons for reason, and bloodshed for resolution.

This day we enter upon a renewal of our baptismal covenant with God in Christ Jesus.  In our life together we must examine what Christianity offers to and asks of each of us.  In Paul’s succinct words to the ancient church in Rome we find clear and unambiguous directions.  While we are utterly free to edit, question, challenge, reject, or (God willing) adopt the principles set forth by the Apostle, we cannot casually pass through them as meaningless jabber.  The good words of old come back to teach us yet again, and how desperately we need those lessons right now in the world, the nation, the home, and the church.  To answer that question I posited earlier: one of the reasons we come here today is to learn the particulars of Christ who is the way, truth, and the life for those who courageously and lovingly choose to follow him.  Let us seek a new year rooted in the love of Christ in this place.  AMEN.

                                                                                    The Rev. Richard H. Downes

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